Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/447

419 HIS DEATH AND CHARACTER. 419 the sweetest perfume of Arabia ! " ^^ In every sit- chapter uation, however, he exhibited the stamp of his pe- ^^^' . culiar calling ; and the stern lineaments of the monk were never wholly concealed under the mask of the statesman, or the visor of the warrior. He had a full measure of the religious bigotry which belonged to the age ; and he had melancholy scope for dis- playing it, as chief of that dread tribunal, over which he presided during the last ten years of his life. 2^ He carried the arbitrary ideas of his profession ms despotic 1- • 1 IT TT- 1 1 government. mto political hie. His regency was conducted on the principles of a military despotism. It was his maxim, that " a prince must rely mainly on his army for securing the respect and obedience of his subjects." ^^ It is true he had to deal with a martial and factious nobility, and the end which he proposed was to curb their licentiousness, and en- force the equitable administration of justice ; but, in accomplishing this, he showed little regard to 26 Gomez, De Rebus Gestis,fol. more or less into all, and into the 160. — Robles, Vida de Ximenez, best, unfortunately, most largely, cap. 17. — " And who can doubt," 23 " Persuasum haberet, non alia exclaims Gonzalo de Oviedo, "that ratione animos humanos imperia powder, against the infidel, is in- aliorum laturos, nisi vi facta aut cense to the Lord?" Quincuage- adhibita. Quare pro certo affir- nas, MS. mare solebat, nullum unquam prin- 27 During this period, Ximenes cipem exteris populis formidini, aut '^permit la condamnation," to use suis reverentiaj fuisse, nisi compa- the mild language of Llorente, of rato militum exercitu, atque omni- more than 2500 individuals to the bus belli instrumentis ad manum stake, and nearly 50,000 to other paratis." (Gomez, De Rebus Ges- punishments ! (Hist, de I'lnquisi- tis, fol. 95.) We may well apply lion, torn. i. chap. 10, art. 5 ; torn, to the cardinal what Cato, or rather iv. chap. 46.) In order to do jus- Lucan, applied to Pompey ; tice to what is really good in the " prstulit arma tog* ; sed pacem armatus characters of this age, one must amavit." absolutely close his eyes against Pharsalia lib. 9. that odious fanaticism, which enters